The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (affectionately known as "CHOP") runs a well known and highly regarded Trisomy 21 Program. Such specialist programs take on clinical, education and research roles. Here is news of a current research project that will directly benefit the health care of children with Down syndrome, at a very practical level:
Parents and doctors have known for a long time that children with Down syndrome tend to grow more slowly and are considerably shorter than most other children. But pediatricians needing to record growth milestones at regular office visits have an outdated set of growth charts based on data collected more than 25 years ago. Since that time, there have been major advances in the medical care of children with Down syndrome. In addition, the demographics of the general U.S. population have changed, and children are taller, but also more overweight.
Now researchers at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia will be measuring children with Down syndrome from birth to age 21 to develop updated growth charts. A four-year, $1.2 million grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is supporting this effort, which brings together experts from the Hospital in growth and nutrition, Down syndrome (also called trisomy 21), and general pediatrics.
Read on for the full text of Eureka's news report about this work (22/4/2010)
The study will produce valuable new clinical tools, but it will also be interesting to see the changes in growth patterns over the 25 years between data collections.
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